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On the Road in search of Kerouac

“Carlo and I went through rickety streets in the Denver night. The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream.” - On the Road, Jack Kerouac.

He was. It was Kerouac’s own version of the American dream, and it took him on the road, criss-crossing the United States throughout the late Forties, famously seeking freedom in motion and speed.

I was in a kind of dream too — or else time travel really is possible. The mirrored skyscrapers of Denver’s 2012 skyline were nowhere to be seen. Instead I was walking rickety streets (by which I think Kerouac means narrow and unpretentious), on a soft, heavy, warm night. No cobbled alleys, but Denver’s little “crazy houses” that Kerouac mentions elsewhere in the book were present in force: simple boxes with peaked roofs, three front windows and a door. Time and space do bend. Time will stand still or even go backwards as long as you change one space for another. I was walking with Kerouac’s ghost — and “Carlo’s” too; Carlo is a pseudonym for the poet Allen Ginsberg — in Gatineau, Quebec, where Walter Salles shot the Denver portions of his film of On the Road, which opens in Britain next week . Denver changed too much in the second half of the 20th century to be able to play itself.

I was interested in Kerouac’s Denver, one of the urban epicentres of the book, because while his novel is celebrated for its characters’ wanderlust — they constantly criss-cross the continental US — it’s really the destinations that drive them as they seek love, run from it, seek work, run from it, and look for a place that feels like home.

Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund search for the American dream

Gatineau

Cross the Alexandra Bridge over the Ottawa River heading south and you’ll step into Ottawa, Ontario, the English-speaking capital of Canada. Cross the bridge heading north and you’ll marchez dans Gatineau, Quebec, a French-speaking collection of towns that united in 2002 and called themselves a city.

Gatineau isn’t well-known but it’s an essential slice of Canada — a filigree of French-speaking culture snaking between the national capital, with its fancy restaurants and hotels, to the silver-spired Notre Dame cathedral, and Canada’s greatest attraction, its immense, unspoilt wilderness, which in this case pokes directly into the city in the form of the 140 square-mile Parc de la Gatineau.

If, like me, you harbour an imp of rebellion that prefers the periphery to the centre, stay in Gatineau instead of Ottawa. Everyone speaks English, but first they will greet you in North American-accented French, with its piratical “arrrr” and subversive slang (patates for potatoes instead of pommes de terre, as in a fast-food restaurant filmed by Salles, called Vites Vites Patates Frites). And they will feed you Quebec’s infamous poutine — chips in gravy and cheesecurds — and serve “pork cretons” for breakfast, described deliciously as “fatty pork spread” on toast. They will put escargots on your pizza.

The Gatineau district in which On the Road was filmed is Old Hull, once known as “Little Chicago” for its lawless days during Prohibition. One of the main drags is Boulevard des Allumettières, named for women who used to work in a local match factory; the little houses that look like children’s drawings, called Matchbox Houses, built for the factory’s workers, fill Hull’s side streets.

I liked this area immensely. Parts have been cleared to make way for government offices, but if Kerouac could see it now he would find enough to make him feel at home (he came from a French-Canadian family and didn’t start learning English until he was six). In Hull, old-time barbershops cohabit with hip cafés and tea rooms, and French speakers share the streets with English-speaking government workers who hang out in bars such as Aux Quatre Jeudis.

The jewel of Hull — of all Gatineau — is the Canadian Museum of Civilisation. Its curvilinear structure echoes the silhouette of Canada at the end of the last ice age, and its interior space, especially the light-filled Grand Hall, is astounding. Anything you ever wanted to know about Canada you can find out here.

The museum offers a superb view of parliament across the river in Ottawa, where time has clicked over to the present-day. Ottawa offers urban luxuries in the clean, outdoorsy atmosphere Canada specialises in. Pleasure boats descend flights of canal locks in the middle of the city. Light floods the glass atrium of the National Gallery. Shoppers fill Byward Market, the country’s oldest continuously operating farmers’ market. It’s a good place to be hungry, and I was famished.

Canadian Museum of Civilisation

Denver

Late afternoon, big city: I ordered an orange float at a mid-century-style diner called Johnny Rockets. The song playing — Elvis’s Hound Dog — was released in 1956, a year before Kerouac published On the Road. He could have walked in and felt right at home.

Kerouac based the novel on his travels with Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty in the book), a figure he saw as a broke, footloose, Beat Generation version of F Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby: someone who redefines the American dream, in this case by running away from it.

Cassady came from the hardscrabble side of Denver, and the city features highly in On the Road. “Wow! What’ll Denver be like!” he writes breathlessly, as his hitchhiking narrator awaits a ride into town. Kerouac’s Denver — Larimer and Colfax Streets, the Five Points neighbourhood where jazz greats played — was like this: red-brick rooming houses, alleys and bars, a rooted place where guys knew each other by reputation. Gatineau, Quebec by another name.

My Denver was something else. I rarely fall for landlocked cities, but I did for Denver. Maybe it was because the blue Rockies on the horizon looked like an upended sea. It’s a quintessentially Western place, with space between skyscrapers and wide streets designed for cars but often filled with bicycles and Vespas.

While you can still find pawnshops on Colfax, Larimer Street has smartened up; the block between 14th and 15th, especially, is crammed with moneyed people and pricey restaurants and shops. Kerouac’s ghost would feel underdressed.

Contemporary Denver is really a collection of neighbourhoods united by innumerable outdoor-recreation shops — REI, on the banks of the Platte River, is the grandest — and love of the Denver Broncos. Downtown glitters with skyscrapers and the architect I M Pei’s 16th Street Mall, a shopping centre sprinkled with painted public pianos. I listened to a much-tattooed young woman play Beethoven with expert finesse.

Lower Downtown — “LoDo”, with a literally lower skyline — inhabits a wealth of brick buildings from the 1900s, now filled with galleries, ethnic restaurants and The Tattered Cover, the city’s best bookstore, with a good collection of Beat Lit.

Denver's Lower Downtown - “LoDo” - has a lower skyline

Most neighbourhoods are studded with outdoor art — the coolest is on Curtis between 15th and 16th: unassuming sidewalk vents that emit disconcerting, gurgling noises — but the best artwork is in the Museum District itself – in a new museum dedicated to the abstract expressionist Clyfford Still and in the American Indian and pre-Columbian collections of the Denver Art Museum.

Uptown and Capitol Hill are leafy, hip and semi-suburban, and the number of people on the streets in sports gear seems to prove the adage that “Everybody in Denver has three bikes, each worth more than their car”.

My favourite moment came at My Brother’s Bar, the oldest in the city, near the Platte riverfront. Kerouac writes of “lovely Denver bars where the waitresses wear slacks and cut around with bashful, loving eyes”. My waitress joked with a table of raucous, happy men while I sipped a Denver Pale Ale and took in the pressed-tin ceiling. The owner, who bought the place with his brother 42 years ago, told me it was built in 1873 and that out the back there was a letter from Cassady, handwritten from reform school, begging a friend to pay his tab at the bar.

I found the letter and 60 years disappeared. Even in Denver itself, time bends for the Beats.

Gatineau essentials

In homage to Kerouac we breezed into Gatineau by car, coming up from the US via Montreal. The two-and-a-half-hour drive between Montreal and Gatineau, through farmland and forest, hints at the sheer immensity of the continent beyond and stirs a visceral tingling in the chest, responding to that adrenalin-boosting union of space and freedom that Kerouac knew so well.

Getting there

You can fly into Ontario (about £620 on Air France from London Heathrow), or opt for Montreal (about £530 on KLM from Heathrow).

Getting around

A car is good for exploring Parc de la Gatineau, which offers every outdoor activity known to man, and quaint, farther-flung sections of Gatineau such as Alymer and Buckingham. You can explore Hull and Ottawa on foot or on a Bixi rental bike. A much-used water taxi crosses the Ottawa River (aufeeldeleau.ca).

Where to stay

We stayed at the Four Points Sheraton in Gatineau (double rooms from £91 a night; fourpointsgatineau.com), across the street from the Canadian Museum of Civilization. It offers a splendid view of Ottawa, heated saltwater pool, and cheesecake spring rolls for dessert.

Where to eat and drink

Piz’za-za (pizzaza.ca), on Laval Street in Gatineau — the city’s tiny nucleus of hipsterdom — makes pizzas with toppings such as escargot. A dinner pizza for two with glasses of wine costs about £27. The brewpub BDT, short for Les Brasseurs du Temps (brasseursdutemps.com), serves seriously good ale; lunch for two with beer costs around £20. For local colour and inexpensive, Canadian fast food, don’t miss Vites Vites Patates Frites.

What to see and do

The Outaouais region, to which Gatineau belongs (Outaouais is the Gallic version of Ottawa; both derive from the American Indian “Outaouac”) is replete with lakes. Lac Leamy lies within Hull itself; you can take a boat trip or stick to its shores, which harbour the St-Éloi Café-Bistro (bistro-saint-eloi.ca), serving blueberry crêpes for breakfast (breakfast for two costs about £13), and the Lac Leamy Casino.

Plan at least half a day at the Canadian Museum of Civilization (civilization.ca); make sure you visit the Canada Hall, with examples of material culture from the Vikings to present day, and the First Peoples’ Hall.

In Ottawa, check out the granite-and-steel National Gallery of Canada (gallery.ca), or just take a photograph with Louise Bourgeois’s Maman, the giant spider sculpture at the front. We enjoyed walking the towpaths of the Rideau Canal and watching boats descend eight locks to the Ottawa River (a 90-minute process). When you get hungry, there’s ByWard Market for cafés and food stalls (byward-market.com). Try two Canadian cheeses: the Brie-like La Sauvagine and Oka, a nutty, semi-firm cow’s milk cheese.

Denver essentials

Getting there

A return from London Heathrow to Denver costs about £567 on United Airlines (united.com).

Getting around

Like Gatineau, Denver has a bike-sharing programme (denver.bcycle.com). Glide through the city centre on Cherry Creek Walkway, which follows a tributary of the Platte from the riverfront to the Museum District and beyond.

Where to stay

I stayed at the Warwick Hotel (double rooms from about £70 a night; warwickdenver.com) on the edge of Downtown and Capitol Hill.

Where to eat and drink

At the “food truck fest” – from midday every Tuesday and Thursday at Civic Centre Park – you’ll find every kind of food imaginable in a convoy of brightly painted trucks. Try Johnny Rockets (johnnyrockets.com) and the Denver Diner (denverdiner.net) for Beat-era burger food. Sam’s No. 3 (samsno3.com) serves the same and more, including smokin’ Denver-style green pork chilli sauce. You can get breakfast or a burger with a drink for under £6.50 at all three.

Don’t miss Potager (potagerrestaurant.com), Denver’s oldest and best “locavore” (for those who want to eat locally produced food) spot; I had an exquisite meal there and still wax poetic about their cool corn chowder. Dinner for two with a glass of wine costs about £75.

My Brother’s Bar offers many beers on tap plus meatless versions of traditional sandwiches, such as the Reuben. A beer and sandwich cost about £6. A friend says El Chapultepec is the best live-music bar in town.

What to do and see

In LoDo check out The Tattered Cover (tatteredcover.com), and poke into Rockmount Ranchware (rockmount.com), where the snap-front cowboy shirt was invented.

Denver Art Museum (denverartmuseum.org) has one of the most creatively appointed shops in museumdom; the new Clyfford Still Museum (clyffordstillmuseum.org) is around the corner. Finally, head east on 17th through the chic Uptown neighbourhood to immense City Park and the Denver Zoo.